Yesterday, we as YWAM Munda had the opportunity to share in front of several hundred young people who were attending the United Church summer camp. I (Eivind) shared about discipleship and how important it is to spend time with Jesus in the Bible and in community. Aaron, the leader of YWAM Munda, shared about discipleship and discipline, while several of our current YWAMers shared their testimonies. We ended up handing out 23 application forms for next year’s DTS! We could have given out many more, but that was all we had.
It suddenly hit me that our role here is to train future missionaries from the Solomon Islands. And I realized how important it is to have access to the Bible! Without access to God’s Word, it is difficult to learn to be a disciple. And you cannot be a missionary without first being a disciple. The Bible is basically the instruction manual for being a disciple, and I became even more excited about our Bible project.
The Bible Project!
We have made tremendous progress in our efforts to print a new edition of the Roviana Bible! We have recently decided to print only the New Testament (NT), as we as YWAM plan to use it with the Audio Bible which is NT only. YWAM Solomon Islands has set aside $10,000 USD to print the Roviana NT. Wycliffe Australia has given $5,000 AUD for the reprint, and we are talking with Wycliffe NZ about sponsorship. From YWAM Solomons Support we have so far raised 3100 NOK. I would like to see this number bigger!
We have now received a price per book, and we are talking about around $5.30 USD per New Testament. That means that we can already order 2,500 copies! I hope that we can collect enough money to print 4,000 New Testaments, which means that we still need to raise another $ 8,000 USD. If you give $ 106 USD, 20 people will have access to God’s word in their language! If you would like to help, you can support by visiting our website solomons.no/en/donate/.
Love in action
If you ask Naomi what she has been doing during her time here, she will find it hard to answer. Fact is that she goes around, meeting people all over the place. She is talking to people, caring for people, feeding people, and praying with people. Everyone knows her! I have learnt to be patient when I am out with her, because this is her calling. She loves to share practical love in the form of soap and food. One night she invited some of the street boys to have dinner with us. Amazingly, they all came and we had an amazing meal! We spent time together and it became late before they left.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
Vaka Hop’e is getting closer to the sea
Another big milestone is that I have put a final coat of paint on Vaka Hop’e for this time. I have repaired a lot of termite damage and rot over the last 6 weeks, and yesterday I put a final coat of paint on the external repairs. It is satisfying to see the boat in better condition than before, but now we to hurry up in order to put her back on the sea in time! Next week we plan to move the boat down to the beach and start assembling the new beams and deck.
Our final weeks
Hopefully we’ll be done before July 20th, because then Naomi’s whole family will be visiting! It will be exciting to show them around this place that has become like a home to us. We will first have a week in Honiara before we have a week in Munda. We will show them the sights, and I’m looking forward to being a little touristy! After two weeks with the family, Naomi and I will travel to Tuvalu where we will join the medical ship YWAM Koha! More about that in the next update 🙂
